Steve Jobs on Average vs Best Software Engineers
How Steve Jobs Discovered That Standing Out Multiplies Success Tenfold
Steve Jobs beat us to it.
He stumbled on the concept of the true worth of an elevated strength maybe without even realising it. He stated:
“I observed something fairly early on at Apple, which I didn’t know how to explain then - most things in life have a dynamic range in which average to best is at most 2:1. For example if you go to New York City and get an average taxi cab driver versus the best taxi cab driver, you’ll probably get to your destination with the best taxi driver 30% faster. And an automobile; What’s the difference between the average car and the best? Maybe 20% ? So 2:1 is a big dynamic range for most things in life.”
How did this translate to his industry? He saw that the best were significantly better than those that were even very good. For Jobs, having a superstrength in one area aligned with success.
“In software the difference between the average software developer and the best is 50:1; Maybe even 100:1. So I’ve built a lot of my success on finding these truly gifted people, and not settling for ‘B’ and ‘C’ players, but really going for the ‘A’ players.
And Jobs also discovered something else about such people…
“I found that when you get enough ‘A’ players together; when you go through the incredible work to find these ‘A’ players, they really like working with each other. Because most have never had the chance to do that before. And they dont work with ‘B’ and ‘C’ players, so its self policing. They only want to hire ‘A’ players. So you build these pockets of ‘A’ players and it just propagates.”
Having strong people want to work with others like them forms teams that keep each other striving for greatness. This creates a cycle where more and more top performers come together, making networks of excellence.